Squashed

Prison for not buying health insurance?

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 15:07:47 -0500

jayparkinsonmd and matthewdipaolamd selectively quote a letter from the Joint Committee on Taxation that includes the language:

H.R. 3962 provides that an individual (or a husband and wife in the case of a joint return) who does not, at any time during the taxable year, maintain acceptable health insurance coverage for himself or herself and each of his or her qualifying children is subject to an additional tax.

[A bunch of helpful context, omitted here]

Criminal penalties

Prosecution is authorized under the Code for a variety of offenses. Depending on the level of the noncompliance, the following penalties could apply to an individual:

• Section 7203 – misdemeanor willful failure to pay is punishable by a fine of up to $25,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year.

• Section 7201 – felony willful evasion is punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years.

It’s true, of course, that it would be theoretically possible for somebody who refused to buy health insurance and willfully refused to pay the increased tax could end up in prison for felony willful tax evasion.

But it’s not actually going to happen. It’s really just a talking point. And that’s a game two can play. Can I say something similarly ridiculous? Let me try:

Under the current tax code, you can take deductions for political donations. So somebody with my income who makes a large donation to the Republican National Committee would pay fewer taxes than I, who did not. And if I decide to willfully pay the same amount of taxes that they did because I think I have a constitutional right not to be penalized for not donating to the RNC, I could end up in prison. The Republicans aren’t fighting to change this—so I have to assume those fascist Republicans want everybody who doesn’t donate to their reelection to go to prison.

Caboo the Akita, plus a light frost.

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 12:29:04 -0500

Caboo the Akita, plus a light frost.

Why we're in Afghanistan

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 19:59:00 -0500

There’s a lot to be unhappy—even angry—about in the decision to escalate the War in Afghanistan. But it may be the best of a series of really awful options. In fact, we’re not really escalating the war. We’re just ratcheting up our involvement. That’s not a euphemism—it’s simply an acknowledgment that the war will continue with or without our involvement. And the people who die will be equally dead and equally mourned whether or not their names get noticed by our evening news or their obituaries run in our newspapers. Let’s not forget that we’re not the only ones who can kill or be killed.

Today in Pakistan, militants attacked a mosque in Rawalpindi. Thirty-six people were killed, seventeen of them children. This wasn’t a case of carelessness. It wasn’t a case of mistaken identity. It wasn’t even a couple rogue psychopaths in an isolated massacre. This was a calculated act by a loosely affiliated, transnational group that determined it would lose if it attacked military targets, so it decided to kill people at random. It is an attempt to promote a political or social agenda by making opponents fear for their lives.

And this is where a categorical pacifism starts looking pretty ineffectual. Pakistan’s government has tried negotiation. It has tried cease fires. None of it worked. And, though the attack happened in Pakistan, it would be remarkably short-sighted to think that what happens in that part of Pakistan isn’t inextricably linked to what happens just over the border in Afghanistan.

I don’t like war. There are bad wars and there are worse wars. The consequences for Afghanistan and much of Pakistan of a unilateral NATO withdrawal—or a gradual NATO defeat through attrition and loss of will are about as bad as they get. I don’t like Obama’s plan. But it could be worse. And I don’t know if it could be better.

C.I.A. to Expand Use of Drones in Pakistan

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 13:34:47 -0500

C.I.A. to Expand Use of Drones in Pakistan:

(via azspot)

The White House has authorized an expansion of the C.I.A.’s drone program in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas, officials said this week, to parallel the president’s decision, announced Tuesday, to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. American officials are talking with Pakistan about the possibility of striking in Baluchistan for the first time — a controversial move since it is outside the tribal areas — because that is where Afghan Taliban leaders are believed to hide.

So, I don’t really have a problem with drone strikes, per se. They’re no more ethically problematic than cruise missiles or attack helicopters. But why is the CIA doing drone strikes? Shouldn’t that be a military matter? Sure, the CIA (hopefully) has some valuable information—but I would really like to restrict the CIA’s role to gathering information.

Shouldn’t we want to keep as much political space as possible between the part of the government in charge of shady political intrigue and the part of the government in charge of killing people?

Unemployment drops to 10.0%

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 12:03:35 -0500

Unemployment drops to 10.0%:

Crazynutjob has more details than you care about. But, despite some regrettable political stances, he knows what he’s talking about on these numbers. And he can answer questions like whether there is a historical correllation between the first derivative of the stock market and the second derivative of the employment rate.

(Is there? Because if there is, I might be a conservative again. Otherwise, I’m still an Obammunist.)

Some of Obama's largest fundraisers are whiny.

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 18:50:41 -0500

Some of Obama's largest fundraisers are whiny.:

Some of President Obama’s wealthiest supporters are becoming a bit whiny, and it has nothing to do with policy. Tickets for tours of the presidential residence are scarce, even for those who raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for last year’s campaign. Private fundraisers tend to be brief, businesslike affairs. And there have been no sleepovers in the Lincoln Bedroom, weekends at Camp David or intimate lunches with the first couple. Nearly a year into his presidency, that pattern has led some top Democratic donors across the country to grumble that they aren’t getting the kind of personal attention from Obama and special access to the White House that they became used to during the eight years of the Bill Clinton presidency.

Apparently, the Way of the Holy Spirit is not a secretive Jesuit martial arts cabal.

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 18:45:00 -0500

Apparently, the Way of the Holy Spirit is not a secretive Jesuit martial arts cabal.

Seriously Huffington Post?

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 10:05:47 -0500

Seriously Huffington Post?

Obama and his Telepromter

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 23:43:05 -0500

jgh writes,

Since when do politicians not read from Teleprompters? Obama has written many of his own speeches. I’m unsure of what this talking point is supposed to be about.

Can somebody help?

I think it’s a mix of a few impulses. It’s very important for a lot of people for Obama to be over-hyped—so if he speaks intelligently and persuasively, it must be some kind of trickery. Thus, the teleprompter. Obama himself is some kind of charismatic actor. The nefarious, liberal forces write his speeches and Obama simply reads them. This helps some people feel less threatened.

This did not just happen. Or did it? Did EA Games seriously just...

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:38:10 -0500

This did not just happen.

Or did it? Did EA Games seriously just hit me with an in-program supplemental license agreement a few weeks after installation? And for a privacy policy? EA Games, you suck.

If you ever see something like this, reject it, and lose any sort of functionality, I would consider you fully within your rights to uninstall the program and demand a full refund of the purchase price. Is it ridiculous to demand a refund because you don’t like a privacy policy nobody thinks you’ll actually read? Sure. But it’s way less ridiculous than the above displayed rubbish.

"When something bad happens we play it back in our minds, looking for a place to step in and change..."

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:19:35 -0500

“When something bad happens
we play it back in our minds,
looking for a place to step in
and change things. We should go outside
right now, you might have said. Or:
Let’s not drive anywhere today.”

- from The Hero’s Luck by Lawrence Raab

Read the rest.

So ... Afghanistan.

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:36:38 -0500

Thirty thousand more troops. Three more years.

I’m pretty utilitarian in my pacifism—so I can support a short-term escalation that leads to a long-term stability. The immediate pull-out followed by a intractable and bloody civil war is decidedly less peaceful, even if we pretend it’s no longer our responsibility. That said, I hope Obama knows what he’s doing regarding stability.

Transparency and accuracy

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:55:53 -0500

There’s been a fair amount of criticism of Recovery.gov. Some of the numbers are wrong. Some of them are very wrong.

On the upside, they’re there. And they’re more or less current. Contrast that with other government statistics like, for example, the Hate Crime Statistics. How did Obama’s election affect hate crime numbers? We don’t know. The most recently released data is from 2007. We should get 2008 shortly—but we’ll have to wait a year or so for 2009. On the upside, those numbers should be neatly reported and more or less accurate.

The desire to release information quickly is directly at odds with the desire to ensure that information is accurate. With Recovery.gov, the Obama administration chose transparency over accuracy. It released raw data. And if somebody accidentally or deliberately reported the wrong congressional district, that error made it onto the website. The temporary inaccuracies don’t (in themselves) suggest that the money is wasted or spent without accountability. And, if there is an actual problem rather than a simple reporting error, they mean the public can know, investigate, and hold the administration accountable. We couldn’t do this with a polished (and potentially tweaked) report.

"Nearly 60 percent of the 375,000 borrowers who qualify to have their loan modifications completed by..."

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 09:23:00 -0500

“Nearly 60 percent of the 375,000 borrowers who qualify to have their loan modifications completed by year-end have either submitted incomplete paperwork or none at all.”

- Gov’t Increases Pressure on Mortgage Industry (AP)

While I don’t know for certain, I’m pretty sure that this statement is incorrect. I suspect the reporter spoke with an administration official who spoke with a bank official who may not have told the entire truth.

Do borrowers screw up paperwork? Of course. Sometimes banks demand nonexistant documents like copies of bank statements on bank stationary from people who receive only electronic statemetns, but it’s doubtlessly sometimes the borrower’s fault. But pretending that the gross underperformance of what should be a reasonably successful program is the borrower’s fault is misleading.

The banks lose paperwork. Frequently. In fact, anything mailed or faxed to some of the mortgage servicers has a roughly even chance of getting to who it is supposed to go to. And if it does get there, it can take days. To make the whole system even more clever, a good number of those documents are sent through overnight mail so they can be misplaced in a timely fashion.

British racing yacht crew held by Iran

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:07:35 -0500

British racing yacht crew held by Iran :

I’m pretty sure Iran is trying to prove something.

"So far, I haven’t seen anything from the Obama administration that comes anywhere close to my most..."

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 11:38:00 -0500

“So far, I haven’t seen anything from the Obama administration that comes anywhere close to my most modest, conservative expectations for policy change.”

- Marco

Marco, out of curiosity, what “modest, conservative expectations for policy change” are you looking for? While there hasn’t been a lot of sweeping, dramatic policy change, it’s hard to think of an area where there hasn’t been some significant progress.

The far left isn’t satisfied. That’s sort of its job. And it’s also its job to insist that nothing has changed until it gets everything it wants. But that doesn’t mean you should believe it. Can you name a single large area where there haven’t been significant policy changes in the last ten months? I’m certainly not going to claim that everything I would like has happened—but let’s not pretend that there’s nothing to be excited about. It’s hardly fair to blame Obama for our inattentiveness.

After a few years of closely following politics, I've decided...

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:04:49 -0500

… I don’t like politics.

I don’t like the petty back and forth. I don’t like the commentators who distort or ignore facts so their side can win some national popularity contest. And I don’t like the rapt attention paid by those craving pointless conflict but too bourgeois people who avidly follow politics because they like pointless struggle but consider themselves to be too serious to like sports like normal people.

I like policy. I like the discussion of policy and the tangible benefits brought about when good policies are put into practice. It’s the derivative business of politics I don’t like. If ideas are like food—to be digested so the useful parts can be turned into energy—politics is like a large intestine. Even if it’s necessary, it’s full of crap.

The Militarization of Sex | Foreign Policy

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:31:00 -0500

The Militarization of Sex | Foreign Policy:

Zahra is divorced and believes that Islam has acknowledged sexual desires for both males and females, which is why temporary marriage is permissible. “It is also a religious duty to fulfill your sexual desires,” she insisted, noting that temporary marriages with women whose husbands had been killed fighting Israel were especially encouraged. “[T]hose who satisfy widows of martyrs have more reward in heaven,” she said.

Oppressive? Progressive? Problematic? What do you think?

The Candle of Hope

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 11:37:44 -0500

The Candle of Hope:

A year ago, I wrote about hope, how it endures, and why it is important. Today, I find myself surprised that a year has passed and wondering how Advent, a season of waiting and expectation, can so consistently catch me by surprise.

It’s appropriate to light the candle of hope first. Hope may be most visible and most poignant when it is alone.

The Jobless Gender Gap

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 10:06:00 -0500

The Jobless Gender Gap :

The data is interesting and potentially significant.

The unemployment rate for men, 11.4%, based on seasonally adjusted data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, outpaces the rate for women, 8.8%. We now have the largest jobless gender gap since tracking became possible in 1948. The gap reached its previous peak, 2.5 points, in 1967 and 1978. Today’s gap has exceeded that for three months. It’s endured at two points or above for an unprecedented length, eight months and counting.

The imbalance, of course, comes from which gender predominates in different fields. I don’t think the author, David Kuhn, does anything particularly insightful with the data. For example, I think statements like, “The jobless gender gap could exacerbate Democrats [sic] historic problems with male voters” are kind of dumb. But perhaps we could ask some more interesting questions of the data.